The Killer Inside Me

Casey A. is a 50s Sheriff's Deputy in small-town Texas. He is a sadistic train wreck who even though he finds himself in the possession of not one but two luscious female bottoms to paddle with his belt he still has to kill everyone in sight. I may be wrong about that but it started to seem he was going to be of the "kill em all and let god sort em out" school. Even so this movie is marvelous. We get a nice little bit of back story explaining his predilections but to me it's the reactions of those around him that make the movie and not his back story. This is a layered, nuanced tale with many lovely ingredients, not the least of which is this newish, noirish serial killer type. The music is of the rockabilly, C&W, operatic type: it does wonders.

I have to be honest and say that by the time this was over, I had stopped caring. As a matter of fact, by about a half hour in I had stopped caring. The story is convoluted, the writing is poor, the pacing is dreadful and the characters are a mish mash of unlikable and unmemorable people, none of whom (except for the 2 women, played by Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba, who end up as unwitting victims of the psychotic, BDSM loving Lou Ford) you really care about. After not really caring about either most of this movie or most of the characters, you're treated to a completely silly ending in which Lou concocts a plan to take out himself and pretty much everybody else by soaking his house with gasoline and other chemicals while waiting for the police to show up, the interesting thing being that once the police show up they seem to spend an awfully long time in the house - without noticing the smell of gasoline and other chemicals! (Meanwhile, if I get just a couple of drops of gasoline on my fingers in a gas station it overwhelms me!)

The only thing that really made this movie worth watching was Casey Affleck as the aforementioned Lou Ford. He was actually pretty good in delivering a very low key, quiet spoken performance; one that was so low key and so quiet spoken (even though we know the character has a very dark side almost from the beginning) that he made the character far more effectively creepy than he otherwise would have been. But beyond Affleck's performance I can't say that there was very much that would be of any great appeal. (3/10)

This film was disturbing as hell! It'll make anybody who has a soul feel sick and the ending will make you mad for it's implausibility.

I wish I had never saw it.

Greetings again from the darkness. The film is based upon the work of crime novelist Jim Thompson, who is quite famous as a writer and whose works have often been translated to film. This time oft-creepy director Michael Winterbottom is in charge and comes pretty close to creating a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the bits that fall short, very nearly ruin the film.

Psychological crime thrillers can be the most fascinating genre (see Inception), but only when the lead psycho is relatable in some sense and the story is complete. Here, Casey Affleck gives an outstanding performance as the dude you don't want your daughter to date. There is a deep darkness hidden behind his aw-shucks facade of innocence and cutesy west Texas drawl.

The violence is expected, yet still shocking, when it first rears its head on poor Jessica Alba. We feel the first punch. What happens in this first encounter catches us off-guard and leaves us wanting to know more background on Affleck's character. Instead, we are really only spectators in his plan of violence that seems to have no real goal. Think Natural Born Killers. Heck, even Ted Bundy had a real plan!

The creepiness factor is upped a bit since most everyone associated with the crimes seems to suspect Affleck's character, but no one knows what to do or how to stop him. Elias Koteas and Simon Baker (miscast) are two who try. Personally I wanted more of the Koteas character as well as Ned Beatty, who plays a powerful developer against whom Affleck holds a grudge.

Bill Pullman is tossed in near the end to help wrap things up, but mostly the ending is as unsatisfying as the rest of the story. It is uncomfortable to watch Affleck's character, so devoid of morals and empty of soul, but it feels wasted on a small town deputy sheriff with no vision. Maybe that's not such a bad thing ... but it makes for a much weaker film.

Cant help expecting more.....

The good things -

Casey Affleck and the character of Lou Ford as the baby faced psycho who thinks he is smart but isn't as clever as he believes Plausible violence - It wasn't good to watch but the situations felt real. I am still not convinced it was so necessary to have so much as you can get the point fairly quickly and then it just starts eating up film time which you could probably use better doing other things.

The bad things The ending - was stupid on so many levels. If by some chance it wasn't in his imagination then what are the chances that so many people have no sense of smell... Would have been much better to finish the film 10 minutes earlier. Dialogue. Maybe its just me and maybe it was the cinema but I just didn't catch what was being said a lot of the time. The Elias Koteas character in particular was hard to understand, and with so many little clues and pointers to whats happening and the different relationships its frustrating when you start missing things

The film as a whole felt incoherent, and I cant help thinking that there are much better films covering the same sort of area